Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T04:42:30.678Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sexuality and the Body Politic: Thoughts on the Construction of an APSA Sexuality & Politics Section

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2007

Angelia R. Wilson  and
Susan Burgess
Angelia R. Wilson
Affiliation:
University of Manchester, UK
Susan Burgess
Affiliation:
Ohio University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One day, argues Foucault, we may wonder how “the ruses of sexuality” seduced us to academic inquiry, but that day is possible only “in a different economy of bodies and pleasures” (1976, 159). In such a very different political reality, a genealogical account of the relationship between power and sexuality might not be necessary. But at present, “our discourse, our customs, our institutions, our regulations, our knowledge” is “busy producing in the light of day and broadcasting to noisy accompaniment” sexuality so pervasive in our consciousness that it informs much of our political culture and democratic governance. Politicians fear being caught in its seduction, yet conjure it to excite voters. Campaign advisers dance with sexuality, provoking it to publicly bless their candidate and using it to scandalize their opponent. Janus-faced voters charge the state with its regulation while, publicly and privately, celebrating sexual freedoms. The body politic knows well the power of sexuality. The leading professional association of political scientists has yet to formally recognise it. Perhaps one day people will wonder at this. Perhaps that day has come.The authors would like to thank Cynthia Burack and Jyl Josephson for assistance with this article.

Type
THE PROFESSION
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , April 2007 , pp. 377 - 381
Copyright
© 2007 The American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramovitz, M. 1988. Regulating the Lives of Women: Social Welfare Policy from Colonial Times to the Present. Boston: South End Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Ellen. 2004. Out of the Closet and Into the Courts: Legal Opportunity Structure and Gay Rights Litigation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Badgett, M. V. Lee. 2001. Money, Myths and Change: The Economic Lives of Lesbians and Gay Men. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Bailey, Robert. 1998. Gay Politics, Urban Politics: Identity and Economics in the Urban Setting. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Bailey, Michael, Lee Sigelman, and Clyde Wilcox. 2003. “Presidential Persuasion on Social Issues: A Two-Way Street?” Political Research Quarterly 56: 49–58.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Mary, and Renate Reimann, eds. 2001. Queer Families, Queer Politics: Challenging Culture and the State. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Blasius, Mark, ed. 2001. Sexual Identities, Queer Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brettschneider, Marla. 2006. The Family Flamboyant: Race Politics, Queer Families, Jewish Lives. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Brewer, Paul R. 2003. “The Shifting Foundations of Public Opinion about Gay Rights.” Journal of Politics 65: 1208–20.Google Scholar
Brown, Wendy. 2006. Regulating Aversion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Burack, Cynthia. 2006. “From Doom Town to Sin City: Chick Tracts and Antigay Politics.” New Political Science 28 (2): 163–79.Google Scholar
Burack, Cynthia. 2003. “Getting What ‘We’ Deserve: Terrorism, Tolerance, Sexuality, and the Christian Right.” New Political Science 25(3): 329–49.Google Scholar
Burgess, Susan. 2006. “Queer (Theory) Eye for the Straight (Legal) Guy: Lawrence v. Texas' Makeover of Bowers v. Hardwick.” Political Research Quarterly 59: 401–14.Google Scholar
Burgess, Susan. 2005. “Did the Supreme Court Come Out in Bush v. Gore? The Politics of the Performance of Shame.” differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 16: 25–40.Google Scholar
Burgess, Susan. 2002. “Who Killed Politics? The Case of Cass Sunstein: Queer Theory Meets Mainstream U.S. Constitutional Theory.” Studies in Law, Politics and Society 26: 25–40.Google Scholar
Burgess, Susan. 1999. “ Queer New Institutionalism: Notes on the Naked Power Organ in Mainstream Constitutional Theory and Law.” In The Supreme Court and American Politics: New Institutionalist Approaches, eds. Howard Gillman and Cornell Clayton. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 199–218.Google Scholar
Buss, Doris, and Didi Herman. 2003. Globalizing Family Values: Christian Right International Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Button, James M., Barbara A. Rienzo, and Kenneth D. Wald. 1997. Private Lives, Public Conflicts: Battles over Gay Rights in American Communities. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Books.Google Scholar
Cahill, Sean, and Sarah Tobias. 2006. Policy Issues Affecting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Cathy. 1999. The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, Tim. 1999. “The Empirical Study of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Politics: Assessing the First Wave of Research.” American Political Science Review 93: 679–92.Google Scholar
Connell, R. W. 1995. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Craig, Stephen C., Michael D. Martinez, James G. Kane, and Jason Gainous. 2005. “Core Values, Value Conflict, and Citizens' Ambivalence about Gay Rights.” Political Research Quarterly 58: 5–17.Google Scholar
Cruz, David B. 2003. “Should Same-Sex Marriage be Legal? Yes.” Focus on Law Studies 29: 4–7.Google Scholar
Currah, Paisley, Richard M. Juang, and Shannon Price Minter, eds. 2006. Transgender Rights. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Dupuis, Martin. 2002. Same-Sex Marriage, Legal Mobilization and the Politics of Rights. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Arlie Russell Hochschild. 2002. Global Woman. New York: Metropolitan Owl.Google Scholar
Enloe, Cynthia. 2000. Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1976. History of Sexuality, vol. 1. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Gallager, John, and Chris Bull. 1996. Perfect Enemies. New York: Crown Publishers.Google Scholar
Gerstmann, Evan. 2003. Same-sex Marriage and the Constitution. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Green, John 2000. “ Antigay: Varieties of Opposition to Gay Rights.” In The Politics of Gay Rights, eds. Craig Rimmerman, Ken Wald, and Clyde Wilcox. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 121–38.Google Scholar
Green, John, Mark Rozell, and Clyde Wilcox. 2006. The Christian Right in American Politics: Marching to the Millennium. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Haeberle, Steven H. 1999. “ Gay and Lesbian Rights: Emerging Trends in Public Opinion and Voting Behavior.” In Gays and Lesbians in the Democratic Process: Public Policy, Public Opinion, and Political Representation, eds. Ellen D. B. Riggle and Barry l. Tadlock. New York: Columbia University Press, 146–69.Google Scholar
Haider-Markel, Donald P., and Mark Joslyn. 2005. “Attributions and the Regulation of Marriage: Considering the Parallels Between Race and Homosexuality.” PS: Political Science and Politics 38: 233–40.Google Scholar
Herek, Gregory M. 2002. “Gender Gaps in Public Opinion about Lesbians and Gay Men.” Public Opinion Quarterly 66: 40–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herman, Didi. 1997. AntiGay Agenda. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirschmann, Nancy J. 2003. Subject of Liberty: Toward a Feminist Theory of Freedom. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hobson, Barbara, ed. 2002. Making Men into Fathers. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Irvine, Janice. 2002. Talk About Sex: The Battles over Sex Education in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Josephson, Jyl J. 2005. “Citizenship, Same-sex marriage, and Feminist Critiques of Marriage.” Perspectives on Politics 3: 269–84.Google Scholar
Josephson, Jyl J., and Cynthia Burack. 2006. “ Inside, Out, and In-Between: Sexual Minorities, the Christian Right, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.” In Religion, Politics and American Identity: New Directions, New Controversies, eds. David S. Gutterman and Andrew R. Murphy. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 247–65.Google Scholar
Kimmel, Michael, and Michael Messner, eds. 1992. Men's Lives. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Lehr, Valerie. 1999. Queer Family Values: Debunking the Myth of the Nuclear Family. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Lehring, Gary. 2003. Officially Gay: The Political Construction of Sexuality by the U.S. Military. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, Gregory B., and Marc A. Rogers. 1999. “ Does the Public Support Equal Employment Rights for Gays and Lesbians?” In Gays and Lesbians in the Democratic Process: Public Policy, Public Opinion, and Political Representation, eds. Ellen D. B. Riggle and Barry L. Tadlock. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Mink, Gwendolyn, ed. 1999. Whose Welfare? Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Neubeck, Kenneth J., and Noel Cazenave. 2001. Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card Against America's Poor. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
O'Dwyer, Conor, and Katrina Z. S. Schwartz. 2006. “Europe's New Illiberals.” Paper presented at the APSA Annual Conference, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Peterson, V. Spike. 2005. “How (the meaning of) Gender Matters in Political Economy.” New Political Economy 10: 499–521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phelan, Shane. 1994. Getting Specific: Postmodern Lesbian Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Phelan, Shane., ed. 1997. Playing with Fire: Queer Politics, Queer Theories. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pinello, Daniel. 2006. America's Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rauch, Jonathan. 2004. Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America. New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
Rayside, David. 1998. On the Fringe: Gays and Lesbians in Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rienzo, Barbara A., James W. Button, Jiunn-jye Sheu, and Ying Li. 2006. “The Politics of Sexual Orientation Issues in American Schools.” Journal of School Health 76: 93–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riggle, Ellen D. B., and Barry L. Tadlock, eds. 1999. Gays and Lesbians in the Democratic Process: Public Policy, Public Opinion, and Political Representation. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rimmerman, Craig A., Kenneth Wald, and Clyde Wilcox. 2000. The Politics of Gay Rights. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rimmerman, Craig A. 2001. From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States (Queer Politics, Queer Theories). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Rollins, Joe. 2005. “Same-Sex Unions and the Spectacles of Recognition.” Law and Society Review 39: 457–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rollins, Joe. 2004. AIDS and the Sexuality of Law: Ironic Jurisprudence. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russo, R. G. 2006. “Extent of Public Education Non-discrimination Policy Protections for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Students: A National Study.” Urban Education 41: 115–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharp, Elaine. 2002. “Culture, Institutions, and Urban Officials' Responses to Morality Issues.” Political Research Quarterly 55: 861–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherrill, Kenneth. 1996. “The Political Power of Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals.” PS: Political Science and Politics 29 (September): 469–73.Google Scholar
Sherrill, Kenneth, and Alan Yang. 2000. “From Outlaws to In-Laws.” Public Perspective 11: 20–3.Google Scholar
Smith, Anna Marie. 1995. New Right Discourse on Race and Sexuality: Britain, 1968–1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snider, R. Claire. 2006. Gay Marriage and Democracy: Equality for All. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Stychin, Carl. 2002. “ A Queer Nation by Rights: European Integration, Sexual Identity Politics, and the Discourse of Rights.” In A Queer Place: Sexuality and Belonging in British and European Context, eds. Kate Chedgzoy, Emma Francis, and Maury Pratt. London: Ashgate Publishing.Google Scholar
Togun, Kehinde, and Jyl Josephson. 2006. “Abstinence-Only Sex Education in New Jersey.” Presented at the Western Political Science Association, Albuquerque, NM.Google Scholar
Wald, Kenneth D. 2000. “ The Context of Gay Politics.” In The Politics of Gay Rights, eds. Craig A. Rimmerman, Kenneth D. Wald, and Clyde Wilcox. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1–28.Google Scholar
Wilcox, Clyde. 1996. Onward Christian Soldiers: The Christian Right and American Politics. Boulder: Westview.Google Scholar
Wilson, Angelia R. 2007a. “With Friends Like These: The Liberalization of Queer Family Policy.” Critical Social Policy 27 (February): 50–76.Google Scholar
Wilson, Angelia R. 2007b. “ New Labour and Lesbian & Gay ‘Friendly’ Policy.” In Women and New Labour, eds. Claire Annesley, Francesca Gains, and Kirstein Rummery. Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Wood, Peter B., and John P. Bartkowski. 2004. “Attributions Style and Public Policy Attitudes towards Gay Rights.” Social Science Quarterly 85: 58–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yang, Alan S. 1997. “Trends: Attitudes toward Homosexuality.” Public Opinion Quarterly 61: 477–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar